The history of arrival and spread of Islam in Indonesia is unclear. One theory states it arrived directly from Arabia before the 9th century, while another credits Sufi merchants and preachers for bringing Islam to Indonesian islands in the 12th or 13th century either from Gujarat in India or directly from the Middle East. Before the arrival of Islam, the predominant religions in Indonesia were Buddhism and Hinduism .Initially, the spread of Islam was slow and gradual. Though historical documents are incomplete, the limited evidence suggests that the spread of Islam accelerated in the 15th century, as the military power of Melaka Sultanate in Malay Peninsular today Malaysia and other Islamic Sultanates dominated the region aided by episodes of Muslim coup such as in 1446, wars and superior control of maritime trading and ultimate markets. By the time European merchants such as Portuguese and Dutch traders began actively trading in Indonesia in the 16th century, Buddhism and Hinduism were extinct in the major islands of Indonesia, except for pockets such as Bali which became the refuge for the Hindus from other Indonesian islands after Muslim Sultanates and Hindu kingdom wars in the 15th century.The spread of Islam in eastern islands of Indonesia is recorded in 1605 when three Islamic pious men collectively known as Dato' Tallu came from Makasar, namely Dato'ri Bandang , Dato'ri Pattimang and Dato'ri Tiro (Abdul Jawad or Khatib Bungsu. According to Christian Pelras , Dato' Tallu converted King of Gowa and Tallo to Islam and changed their name to Sultan Muhammad. The spread of Islam was initially driven by increasing trade links outside of the archipelago. Traders and the royalty of major kingdoms were usually the first to convert to Islam. Dominant kingdoms included Mataram in Central Java, and the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore in the Maluku Islands to the east. By the end of the 13th century, Islam had been established in North Sumatra; by the 14th in northeast Malaya, Brunei, the southern Philippines and among some courtiers of East Java; and the 15th in Malacca and other areas of the Malay Peninsula. Although it is known that the spread of Islam began in the west of the archipelago, the fragmentary evidence does not suggest a rolling wave of conversion through adjacent areas; rather, it suggests the process was complicated and slow. Despite being one of the most significant developments in Indonesian history, historical evidence is fragmentary and generally uninformative such that understandings of the coming of Islam to Indonesia are limited; there is considerable debate amongst scholars about what conclusions can be drawn about the conversion of Indonesian peoples. The primary evidence, at least of the earlier stages of the process, are gravestones and a few travellers' accounts, but these can only show that indigenous Muslims were in a certain place at a certain time. This evidence cannot explain more complicated matters such as how lifestyles were affected by the new religion or how deeply it affected societies. It cannot be assumed, for example, that because a ruler was known to be a Muslim, that the process of Islamisation of that area was complete; rather the process was, and remains to this day, continuous in Indonesia. Nevertheless, a clear turning point occurred when the Hindu empire Majapahit in Java fell to the Islamised Demak Sultanate. In 1527, the Muslim ruler renamed newly conquered Sunda Kelapa as Jayakarta which was eventually contracted to Jakarta. Assimilation increased rapidly in the wake of this conquest.
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